


Incandescence

by towardsmorning



Series: Perspectives [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Asexual Character, Community: sherlockbbc_fic, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(<i>Prompt: Asexual Female!Sherlock/Female!John.</i>)</p><p>"Sherlock isn't sexy. It's not her natural looks conspiring against her, but rather an almost studious thing. Hair constantly half tamed and at an awkward length, no makeup to blunt the edges of her face, suits modest and faintly masculine to hide any figure she might have. The effect is striking, perhaps, but not really attractive."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incandescence

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written for a prompt, but it was written while I was writing 'She laughs like God...', so it ended up basically being the same Joan and Sherlock. I definitely wrote both previous pieces with the possibility of (quite far in the) future S/J in mind. So here, have this.

Sherlock really isn't sexy.

Joan doesn't mean that to sound as insulting as it does inside her head, but there's not really a nicer way to put it. No doubt it's not something which bothers the woman, anyway, Joan reassures herself, so surely it's fine. _No need to spare the truth_ , would probably be any acerbic response to Joan's attempt at any apology.

So: Sherlock isn't sexy. It's not her natural looks conspiring against her, but rather an almost studious thing. Hair constantly half tamed and at an awkward length, no makeup to blunt the edges of her face, suits modest and faintly masculine to hide any figure she might have. The effect is striking, perhaps, but not really attractive. The sort of person who belonged in a modern art gallery to be dissected in all her disturbing edges, rather than to be photographed and sold as the image of a human being.

Joan wonders why Sherlock goes to all the effort, privately. It's definitely an effort, too. Joan knows careless disregard for appearances, has exercised it herself plenty of times when she just can't be arsed; Sherlock is so consistent that Joan knows this can't be it.

Her mind turns on the topic endlessly. All of this to justify that no, she doesn't fancy her flatmate, _really._

It's not fancying someone if you don't want to shag them, Joan insists to herself. Wordless communication and implicit understanding and a sudden shaking realisation that you cannot stand the thought of ever being anywhere else but with them, those are all reasonable things for Joan to share with Sherlock, because Joan _doesn't want to shag her_. It doesn't matter that sometimes Joan wants to trace each cheekbone and commit the memory to her fingertips, because she doesn't want to strip her naked. Wanting to kiss each eyelid doesn't mean Joan wants to kiss Sherlock's mouth.

So that's fine.

Joan broaches the subject, just once, to prove how fine it is.

"Dull," is Sherlock's terse response, collapsed on the sofa and flicking through a book with a screaming, gaudy cover. Something about serial killers, surprise, surprise. Apparently Sherlock's not one for escapism.

"Which bit? My question, or just the topic in general?"

"Both. What on Earth would be the point of walking around looking attractive, Joan? Honestly."

The tone makes her bristle, though why, Joan couldn't say. It's a pretty standard combination of condescension and apathy, but this time it sets Joan on edge. "Well, it works for most people."

"And I'm not most people," Sherlock says in a way that suggests the matter is settled. Perhaps it is.

Joan can't let it go, though. Her curiosity is starting to border on morbid.

"So what, it's part of your grand plan to keep people away?"

"Hardly a 'grand plan', Joan. I don't find much effort tends to be required," Sherlock states matter-of-factly, voice betraying no self-pity, even a slight trace of amusement. Joan finds her own lips twitching briefly upwards automatically.

"But seriously, it's some unwanted-attention thing?" Joan knew a girl when she was at uni who did that sometimes, left off the makeup and mismatched her clothes to try and avoid catcalls. It hadn't worked all that well, but on the other hand, she'd lacked the abrasive personality Sherlock had. Perhaps that made a difference.

"I suppose," sighs Sherlock with the tired patience of someone who really wants to say _no, not at all_ , but who likewise would rather not have to explain themselves.

They've barely talked about this with each other since that first mad, ridiculous night; once or twice in passing, but not as a pointed thing. Not even when Irene was alive and whole and practically dragging Sherlock to bed, or trying to. But Joan is watching Sherlock read and finding herself wondering what those fingers draped over the dustjacket would look like draped over her hands instead, and so Joan presses on. Just friendly curiosity, she tells herself. Or morbid curiosity. Whichever.

"And I suppose you don't have much in the way of wanted attention?"

The book snaps shut abruptly. Joan wrenches her eyes away from Sherlock's hands and looks slightly to the left of Sherlock's face, carefully avoiding the grey gaze. "No," is her response, and Joan knows that tone of voice. It's the tone Sherlock uses on particularly interesting puzzles, like Joan is the last move in a chess game, one square from checkmate. That particular voice never fails to make Joan feel both flattered and discomfited at the same time. "It all tends to come down to the same thing, it seems."

"Which is?"

"Sex. People's fondness for it, that is. As I said, it's dull."

"But?" Joan prompts after a moment of silence, and at Sherlock's sharp, testing glare, adds, "-well, if the unwanted attention is... sex, then what do you want?" That kind of logic is something Joan finds works well on Sherlock, reacting to the unspoken rather than the spoken, the words that slip through the lines because Sherlock just doesn't have the time or inclination to voice them.

(Her mind tells her that it says something uncomfortable that Joan is so thoroughly tuned to Sherlock that this roundabout method of communication comes to her with ease.

Joan immediately tells her mind to shut the hell up.)

Sherlock continues to look directly at her, and there's a challenge in her eyes that Joan tells herself she's not remotely interested in taking. Her mouth is dry. Hands are steady. Breath even. Heartbeat far from racing, but a steady pound in her ears that Joan finds herself keeping time to. She's not nervous, Joan realises, she's anticipating something, but no, that isn't quite it either.

A tension in the air makes her wish the weather could justify opening a window. It's stifling, strange, and not nearly as unpleasant as Joan wants it to be. For a moment Joan wishes she were Sherlock, if just so she could discern from the set of Sherlock's facial muscles and the tension in her shoulders if Sherlock thinks that too, or if her train of thought is going somewhere else entirely.

"Someone to look twice." The sound of Sherlock's voice seems faintly too loud in the room all of a sudden, and Joan keeps her own low.

"Look twice, past the..."

Her voice trails off. The everything, she wants to say; past the hair and the suits and the biting observations, past the eyes in the microwave and that terrible tendency to play music until four AM? _All the things I looked twice at, or perhaps never looked away from in the first place?_

"Hm," comes the inarticulate noise in response, either approval or disappointment. The book is set down on the coffee table. When Sherlock brushes past, arm dragging along Joan's for just a moment, the spark that jolts up her arm doesn't feel at all like arousal.

It's bloody gorgeous, though, and the thought is terrifying.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm such a sucker for ace!Sherlock/heterosexual!John and all the delicious issues it presents. What can I say? I like my shipping complicated.


End file.
